by Teri Wilson
She wondered if the answer was somehow tangled up in the ugly episode of her disinheritance. She thought maybe so, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She’d made peace with her father, and in the end, her mother had stood up for her in a way she never could have imagined. On some level, she was glad it had happened. Being cut off from her family had taught her some important truths. It taught her she was capable of standing on her own two feet and making her own decisions. It taught her what kind of parent she wanted to be to her baby. And most of all, it taught her she could trust Finn Crawford. He was a keeper, and she had no intention of running again. Ever.
He ran tender fingertips across her baby bump, then pressed a hand to her heart and whispered her favorite word.
“Mine.”
Her heart was his, now and forever. Past, present and always.
“I have an idea,” he said, shooting her one of his boyish grins.
“Oh, yeah? Does this idea involve a goat?” She kind of wanted another one. Another baby, too, now that she was thinking about it. The more, the merrier. After all, the Ambling A had plenty of room.
“It does not.” He arched a brow. “Unless you want Pumpkin to be part of our wedding. That could be arranged. Maybe she could be the ring bearer. Don’t people do that with dogs?”
Avery shifted so she could get a better look at his expression. Was he serious? “Aren’t you forgetting something, cowboy? We’re already married.”
He picked up her hand and toyed with the rose gold band on her finger. Someday Avery might pass it on to their daughter and tell her the story of how she’d married her father in tiny country courthouse in Great Gulch where the bailiff wore spurs. And then maybe her daughter would pass it on to her own child, and so on and so on, so that generations of Crawfords would remember the fine man who’d won her heart against all odds.
“I know we’re already married, but I’d like to have another wedding—a ceremony like the one Wren asked you about. A big celebration that both our families could attend.” He bent to kiss her, warm and tender. “Think about it. How does that sound, Princess?”
She smiled at her husband. She didn’t need to think about anything. The answer fell right off her tongue. “Perfect.”
Just like a fairy tale.
* * *
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Her Favorite Maverick
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A Husband She Couldn’t Forget
by Christine Rimmer
Chapter One
The accident never should have happened. And it wouldn’t have happened if Alyssa Santangelo hadn’t let herself get distracted by thoughts of the past.
With a long stay in her hometown ahead of her, Aly had promised herself that this time, she would not try to keep a low profile. This time, she wouldn’t be slinking around town like a heartsick fool, trying to avoid any chance she might run into the guy who’d lied and broken her heart and had her served with divorce papers after making zero effort to work things out.
And there. She’d just done it. Let her mind stray into dangerous territory. She wasn’t going to do that. She would not think about him.
And she wasn’t thinking about him. Not really.
She was only reassuring herself as to how this visit would go, only bolstering her resolution to stand tall and be strong. With a deep breath and a determined smile, she focused on the road ahead of her.
The drive from Portland International to Valentine Bay was a beautiful one. They called this section of US Route 26 the Sunset Highway. It wound in and out of the national forest, working its way west toward the setting sun.
It was just twilight on a warm Saturday evening in July. Aly had the windows down in her rental car and the air smelled of spruce and fir. Of Oregon.
Of home.
And her thoughts...
Her thoughts just wouldn’t behave. They kept drifting, wandering, pretending to stay in the present, and then circling back again.
To her ex, to Connor Bravo.
Really, she hardly thought of the guy anymore—or if she did, she reminded herself firmly to stop thinking of him, to count her blessings instead.
And her blessings were many. She had a job she loved at Strategic Image. The ad agency had hired her as an assistant to an assistant straight out of the University of Oregon. She’d started at the bottom of the ladder, but she’d moved up fast. She’d made friends, good friends, the kind a woman can count on. Her current apartment in Tribeca was perfect, a small space, but with a huge closet for her fabulous wardrobe. She was living her dream in New York, New York.
Only one thing was missing—the right man to share her life with.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to find him. She put herself out there, dating guys her friends had introduced her to and guys she met via Match and Coffee Meets Bagel. Somehow, though, that special something was always missing. Her relationships never lasted that long. The most recent of those had ended a couple weeks ago. Kyle Santos was a great guy. He just wasn’t the right guy. It had seemed wrong to drag things out, so she’d broken it off with him.
And seriously, what was she brooding about? She was only twenty-nine and mostly focused on her job. She would find the man for her, eventually. And she would get it right the second time around.
Coming home, though...
Well, it was tough. The memories were everywhere she turned. She and Connor used to drive this stretch of highway together several times a year, going back and forth from OU in Eugene. They would stop at rustic, logging-themed Camp 18 for burgers and to give their phones a workout snapping pictures of each other, mugging it up with the chainsaw sculpture of Big Foot at the ent
rance to the gift shop.
Those were the good times. The best times.
Too bad Connor had screwed everything up, lying to keep her and then refusing to even try the life he’d sworn he was eager to live with her.
She blinked and refocused and reminded herself yet again to cut it out.
Didn’t work.
Seven years since he’d divorced her, and still it took only an hour on the Sunset Highway for the memories to come flooding back.
Did he ever think of her?
Oh, I don’t think so...
During one brief visit home five years ago, she’d seen him down on Beach Street with a blonde. They’d looked like a Ralph Lauren ad, Connor and the blonde, both of them all tawny, tanned and fit. Aly had ducked into a leather goods store before he could spot her, but the damage was done. The sight of him with another woman had cut her to the quick.
Aly clutched the steering wheel more tightly. She swallowed hard and blinked against the hot pressure of rising tears.
Seriously. What was the matter with her?
Seven years since her marriage ended. She hadn’t spoken to the man once in all that time and she never would. She really was over him, definitely.
“You’re doing it. Again,” she whispered at the windshield, her voice disgustingly breathy, weighted with despair. She flexed her fingers to relax them. It was years ago. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t coming home for him.
“Woman up,” she muttered to the empty car.
If she saw him, she saw him. Get over it. He has.
Up ahead, headlights gleamed. It was weird, in the fading light. The oncoming vehicle almost looked as though it had swerved into her lane.
Scant seconds later she realized the horrible truth. The headlights were in her lane.
With a sharp cry, she jerked the wheel hard to the right to avoid impact—too hard, she realized too late. The thick trunk of a Douglas fir reared up beyond the windshield.
A split second later, the world went black.
* * *
Voices.
They seemed to come from all around her. Voices and sirens and strange sounds—air escaping, metal creaking. Her chest felt like someone had whacked it with a hammer. And the skin of her face, which was buried in something that smelled like singed baby powder, burned as though she’d face-planted on asphalt.
She heard a groaning sound. It came from her own mouth.
A man’s voice near her left ear said, “She’s coming around.”
Another groan escaped her. Gritting her teeth, she willed her body into action and somehow managed to flop back away from the smelly thing that covered her face—an air bag! The smelly thing was an air bag.
With yet another groan, she put it together. Somehow, she’d been in an accident, and it looked pretty bad...
Carefully, she turned her head to meet the worried eyes of the state trooper staring at her through the wide-open driver’s-door window. Red light from a light bar reflected on his face in strobe-like flashes.
“It’s okay,” the trooper promised, in that tone people use when it really isn’t, but what else can you say? “We’re going to get you out of there. Can you talk to me?”
“I...yes. Of course.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Uh.” She tried to decide. “I think I’m all in one piece, at least.”
“Good girl. What else?”
“There’s...some pain. My chest aches. And my face...” It really did feel as though someone had taken a cheese grater to her cheeks and forehead.
“That’s from the air bag,” the trooper said.
Aly shut her eyes and dropped her head to the seat rest again. “Everything hurts, but I don’t think anything is broken...” Or maybe she was just in shock and didn’t even realize she was almost dead.
“Hold tight,” the trooper said. “I promise we’re going to get you out of there as quickly as we can...”
It took a while. They brought out the Jaws of Life and sawed her free of the ruined car, which had folded itself around her like a big metal pretzel.
The EMTs moved in. They talked about how lucky she was—her face a little scratched up, a big bruise forming like a beauty pageant banner diagonally across her chest from the seat belt. On her left knee, she had a cut that would need stitches.
And she’d sustained what they called a mild traumatic brain injury—seriously, who even knew you could use the words mild and traumatic brain injury in the same sentence? One of the EMTs said they estimated she’d been unconscious for less than ten minutes. Patiently, they guided Aly through the basic vision and consciousness tests.
She passed, the paramedic reassured her. She was going to be fine. The woman patted her shoulder gently. And Aly felt such gratitude, like a warm wave washing through her aching chest.
So what if everything hurt? She was lucky to be alive and relatively unharmed.
The EMTs gave permission for her to talk briefly to another state trooper, a woman this time. Aly tried to remember. She recalled passing Camp 18, but after that, it was all a blur.
“I don’t know, really, how it happened, or why I hit that tree. I think there were headlights, maybe, coming at me, in my lane...”
The trooper nodded. “We have a witness, a woman in a vehicle who wasn’t far behind you. She saw the other car in your lane and barely swerved in time to avoid a collision herself. She’s the one who called 9-1-1. Unfortunately, her description of the oncoming car is too vague for identification. She said she thought it was a dark sedan.”
“So, whoever it was will get off scot-free?”
The trooper gave a shrug of regret. “It happens—too often, sad to say.”
Aly put her hand to her head. “I’m sorry. My head really hurts.”
The officer was sympathetic. “I’ll let you go, then.” She gave Aly a card. “Call this number if anything more comes back to you.”
“What about my things? They’re still in what’s left of the car.”
The trooper gave her another card with a number to call to get her stuff once what was left of the car had been “processed” and “cleared.”
And that was it. The EMTs loaded her into an ambulance and off they went to Valentine Bay Memorial.
* * *
At the hospital, she kept telling everyone that she felt fine, just a little banged up with a headache. She asked to call her parents. The request brought soothing noises and promises that she could make the call “soon.” They took her vitals and examined her more thoroughly for any new and potentially worrisome symptoms from her head injury. The air bag burns were declared minor and treated with a gentle cleaning and antibiotic ointment.
In the end, the doctor in charge prescribed a night at the hospital for observation. Barring complications, he promised, she would be released the next morning.
They moved her to a regular room and she used the phone by the bed to call her mom, who answered on the second ring with, “If you’re a telemarketer, hang up now.”
Her cheeks still hurt, but Aly smiled anyway. “Hey, Mom. It’s me.”
Catriona Santangelo said nothing for a slow count of three, after which she stated carefully, “You’re not calling from your phone and we expected you two hours ago.”
“Yeah, well...” Alyssa let her head drop back to the pillow with a sigh. “Can you believe I don’t even know where to start with this?”
“What’s happened?”
“I’m fine, I promise you. Are you in bed?” Aly’s mom was forty-eight—and seven months pregnant with her fifth son. In recent weeks, her blood pressure had climbed. She’d had cramping and some bleeding and the family doctor had put her on modified bed rest—which was why Aly, who never came home for more than a few days at a stretch, had taken an extended leave from her job in Manhattan. At a time like this, Cat
needed her only daughter at her side and Aly needed to be with her mom.
Cat scoffed, “Of course I’m in bed. I hardly dare to get up to go to the bathroom. The men in this family will be the death of me, I swear. Overprotective is too tame a word for your father and your brothers, let me tell you.”
“And yet here you are, having another one.”
“God never gives us more than we can handle—plus, well, you know your father.” Ernesto Santangelo was a plumber by trade. He was strong and fit at fifty and he loved Aly’s mom with a fiery passion, to say the least. Cat’s voice grew husky. “Impulsive and so romantic. What can I say? I could never resist him.”
“La, la, la—I don’t want to hear about your, er, private life, Mom.”
Cat started laughing and then Aly was laughing, too—until she gasped at the pain around her ribs. “Ouch!”
“All right, Alyssa,” her mother said sternly. “What is going on?”
“It’s nothing that serious. I was in a little accident, that’s all. My rental car was totaled, but I’m going to be fine.”
More dead air on the line. Alyssa’s mom never got hysterical. Cat was the strong, silent, effective type in any emergency. “Tell me,” she finally commanded. “Tell me everything. Now.”
Aly explained what she could remember about the accident, finishing with, “I don’t really remember why, exactly, I veered off the road and hit a tree, but when I came to, the car was a goner.”
“Thank God you’re all right—but a mild TBI? That’s still a concussion, right?”
“Yes. And do not get out of bed, Mom. Do not come to the hospital.”
“But are you sure that you’re...?”
“A little battered and very relieved to be all in one piece. That’s where I am on this. They’re keeping me overnight, but only for observation. It’s nothing serious and I’ll be home with you in the morning.”